The present invention relates to a user interface, in particular, to the ability of a machine to upload or download auditron data to a PC or phone line.
In the prior art systems for monitoring the operation of a plurality of reprographic machines from a remote source by use of a host computer having high level diagnostic capabilities are known. These systems have the capability to interact remotely with the machines being monitored to receive automatically initiated or user initiated requests for diagnosis and to interact with the requesting machine to receive stored data to enable higher level diagnostic analysis. Such systems are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,038,319, and 5,057,866 and incorporated herein by reference. These systems employ Remote Interactive Communications (RIC) to enable transfer of selected machine operating data to the remote site at which the host computer is located, through a suitable communication channel. The machine physical data may be transmitted from a monitored document system to the remote site automatically at predetermined times and/or response to a specific request from the host computer.
In a typical RIC system, the host computer is linked via a public switched telephone system or a combination of public and dedicated systems to local reprographic machines via modems. The host computer may include a compiler to allow communication with a plurality of different types of machines and an expert diagnostic system that performs higher level analysis of the machine physical data than is available from the diagnostic system in the machine.
It is also known in various prior art machines to have an auditron function. This function may restrict access to the machine to those customers that have accounts, and will also maintain a record of copies made on each "account." For non-networked machines, this information can be displayed on the User Interface, or in some cases formatted and sent to a printer that was supported by the machine. These types of data transfer were awkward, however. Many customers would prefer a database type of interface where the information could be more easily integrated into specific billing databases. Although this type of interface is offered for some networked machines via "CentreWare" a network software package, this type of interface is not available for non-networked (i.e. stand alone copiers).
To overcome this deficiency in the prior art, it would be desirable to offer the customer an opportunity to transmit data directly to PC's and then convert the data into a generic ASCII type file format that may be easily integrated into a preferred accounting system, such as into MS Excel format. This would be a significant timesaving to accounts that have specific computer based accounting systems. Most of these customers have been printing out the account information and hand typing it into their system.
An object of the present invention is to provide an Electronic Auditron with the capability to download and upload account information to a PC directly and also upload and download information to a PC remotely using a modem. It is another object of the present invention to be able to transfer a binary data file containing Auditron account information over the phone line between a PC and the stand along copier after the correct password has been entered. This binary file may be converted to an ASCII file, Microsoft Excel database, or other formats such as MS Access that can be easily integrated with the customers billing database software.
Other advantages of the present invention will become apparent as the following description proceeds, and the features characterizing the invention will be pointed out with particularity in the claims annexed to and forming a part of this specification.